Tell Us Your Fresh Outrage, and How You’re Able to Maintain

I love my kids, and don’t want there to be any misunderstandings on that front. Both are smart and interesting, and have given us no serious trouble. They’re good guys. However… they sometimes do things that annoy the shit out of me.

Take, for instance, the way they eat cereal. The older boy, especially, will load up a big bowl of Cap’n Crunch, or whatever, and eat the top layer off. He just skims off some of it, then leaves what’s left on the kitchen counter. He doesn’t put it in the dishwasher. Oh no. That would never even occur to him.

So, an hour later I walk through there and pour a half gallon of milk down the sink, along with a shitload of super-expensive cereal. Does he even go deep enough to reach the milk? It’s a good question, and it irritates me every time. Whenever I see him loading up another Jethro Bodine serving, with the contents WAY above the rim, I start grinding my teeth in aggravation anticipation.

Yesterday, for roughly the hundredth time, I flipped out and told them I’m apparently going to have to hold a cereal-eating seminar, so they know how regular human beings go about it. I also told them I’d throw in some instructions on soda-drinking as a free bonus. They just rolled their eyes and went on watching Top Gear.

They rarely have soda, and almost never had it when they were young. So, they don’t know how to drink it. They open a bottle and start chugging. I don’t know why. But they both tear into it like they’re in prison, and are afraid someone might take it from them. I see this frenzy in my peripheral vision, and don’t say anything because I don’t want to be a COMPLETE asshole. But my whole body tenses-up.

There’s other stuff, too. But I don’t want you guys to get the wrong impression. I know how lucky we are to have 16 and 13 year old boys, and only have cereal-eating to complain about. They could be doing drugs, or telling me to fuck off, or setting church fires… You don’t need to remind me of this, I know it. But it still makes me crazy.

NOT a fan of the Cap’n Crunch strip-mining!

Speaking of not a fan… I had to work on Saturday morning at 6 a.m. I’m a night person, I work night shift, and am completely wired that way. Yet, they’re now requiring me to work two Saturdays per month – starting at the ass-crack of dawn. I think it’s pretty shitty, to be perfectly honest. I understand required overtime, but why a totally different shift?? It plays havoc with my internal clock.

And, as so often happens when I have to get up really early, I allowed it to get to me. I started worrying about it on Friday afternoon. That evening I went to bed at 9:30, read for a half-hour, and actually fell asleep. Usually, when I’m thinking about it, I can’t drift off.

My alarm was set for 4 a.m., and if I slept from 10 to 4, that wouldn’t be so bad. So far, so good…. But, at 1:30 in the morning I was wide awake, and never went back to sleep.

I went to work, had to be there for two extra hours due to completely avoidable complications (grrr…), and came home around 4. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. I was awake, but not really. Everything was weird.

I gave the older boy a ride to work, came home and crashed harder than Patsy Cline. My whole Saturday: ruined. Literally nothing was achieved. No time with the family, no writing, no work around the house. One of my regular days off was fully destroyed.

And yesterday I got to start my regular schedule. Good, good stuff.

But we’re going to NYC in a couple of weeks, and I’m taking two vacation days around Labor Day. I promised to turn in the first 100 pages of the new book the first week of September, and have about 6000 words to go. I’m hoping I’ll have the full 25,000 completed before the mini-vacation starts, so I can spend all of it editing and polishing and punching-up the funny.

I swear, if I didn’t have this website and the book project I think I’d snap. It sounds like a joke, but it isn’t.

What’s bugging you guys these days? What’s your fresh outrage? We need to keep doing this, from time to time, to keep our fingers on the pulse of the horseshit. Please bring us up to date in the comments section below.

Also, what do you use as a crutch? How do you keep it together? What distractions do you use to relieve the pressure? Or am I the only one about ready to lose his shit? Please tell me it ain’t so!

Comments

I have a pair of teenage girl relatives who, whenever they want a gulp of soda, get a new can from the fridge. As in, get a can, open it, take a gulp or two, abandon that 3/4 full can somewhere, 30 minutes later, get another can, open it, gulp, abandon, rinse and repeat. At the end of the day there can literally be 12 – 15 three-quarters full cans of soda littered around the lounge.

They are not my kids. I would have waterboarded them with Sprite a long time ago.

Lots of people are at the end of their tether. It’s hot, it’s humid, we’re broke, all the politicians are negative assholes… it’ll be better by Xmas.

Something new that’s pissing me off. We have a new guy at work – nice enough kid but he has this really annoying habit. It must be a nervous thing. He’ll start talking to me while clutching a bottle of water as if it’s the last life preserver on the Titanic, and start slurping it in between conversation: “So (slurp slurp), I went to school at UConn (slurp slurp) and started out first in Journalism (slurp slurp).” Nice enough guy but I’m about a 1/2 slurp from kicking his nuts.

Jeff, if the older boy is working, tell him from now on, he’s buying his own cereal! Whe he has to start forking over $5 a box, that may get him to finish what’s in his bowl.

Yeah, after buying a couple boxes of the “Cap’n” with his own money, he’ll eat every morsel, slurp up every drop of milk and even wash the bowl and spoon!
Kids aren’t so wasteful when it’s their own money!!

I concur, Jeff. You have to play tough to get teens to understand what it means when you get upset over such waste. To them, it’s in the pantry, the milk is in the fridge, what’s the big deal? When you start labeling what milk you and Toney buy and demand he buy his own, with his own cereal he will soon either go without, or will begin to see why it is such a “big deal”. You don’t have to keep it up forever, just long enough for him to respect that you two are working hard to keep them fed, not working hard for the food you purchase for the entire family to go to waste so easily.

My fresh outrage is from listening to the 20-something daughter and brother of a friend of mine. She has 3 kids, never a husband, never a job and lives in a government-paid-for apartment, eating government-paid-for-food, etc etc.

The brother is 400 pounds and ‘disabled’, likewise living off the government as he can’t work [He *does* love his iPhone 4 tho….]

To hear the two of them bitch at how little money they get from the government for this or that….. makes me want to choke the shit out of the both of them!

Unc-
I think it’s gonna be a few years before ‘Meat-chicken’ will fully recover from the fiasco that was Rich Rodriguez. Hoke & Co. seem to be bringing something to the table.
That being said, I DO hope that the Maize and Blue is once again a force to be reckoned with. I mean seriously, what’s the point of a rivalry when it’s as one-sided as it has been for the past decade or so? It’s like smacking your little sister…or something!

On a related note, soon-to-be granddaughter already has Ohio State gear to wear! We start the brain-washing early ’round these parts!!

any uneaten food here goes into the dogs dishes, booger is semi picky, but dumass will eat almost anything but black olives
as far as what bugs me,a recent retiree, its the retired neighbor, a beekeeper who just installed honey bees on my back 40, i live on farm in wv, and the daily bonding sessions that are now ongoing
he is a nice guy, but liked our previous relationship of just waving,with all my fingers, as i drove by much better

unlike the other neighbors that my wave to them does not involve all fingers

How weird is that; my two dogs are the same. The one is picki-ish (not a real word) but the other one will eat just about anything except…black olives! What is it about black olives? I wonder if I can get the government to give me some money to study this phenomenom…

Here’s some fresh outrage. Right out the ground and still covered in dirt.

I just spent 4 hours auditing an invoice to find $3.

Now that sounds irritating, sure. But it gets worse when you consider my situation. First of all, I’m a government employee. That means you just paid me to do a four hour audit for $3. That means it cost the government $120 for me to identify a $3 difference in the invoice. Congratulations Uncle Sam, you just saved -$117. Idiot.

The total invoice was for over $30,000. These local guys couldn’t get there 30K because it took over a week for the invoice to get to my level, plus my four hours, to find out that they were trying to fleece us for a pound and a half of pennies.

I offered to just pay the $3 myself. I was swiftly told that this is illegal and could cost me up to tons worth of pennies and years in jail at Fort Assrape. Also, all you retards won’t have me paying what the government owes, not even if it’s only 300 cents worth. Yeah, I’m talking to all of you, because apparently this three dollars is fucking crucial to all of your miserable lives. If I would have taken any less time to audit this invoice, the middle class would crumble, the rich would actually eat the poor in a feast of cannibalism, Mitt Romney kill your grandmother, and Obama would kick your kids in the face.

I’d rather have my tax dollars go to your hourly wages (even if mis-spent because of management idiots) than to have it go to those 2 pieces of shit described by Henderson.

Better yet, why not let me keep my tax dollars, and I’ll be able to hire you in my business and pay you more than you’re getting from the top-heavy trickle-down government redistribution program. What a concept, huh?

I understand you completely, Ice. I, too work in government and feel the same way about EVERYTHING. I am astounded at how 1950’s everything is and how many things we could save on, if those above would simply listen and realize that stupid “laws” need to be tweaked when it comes to proper management.
CADude, if you take Ice, will you take me? You have no idea how much I’ve been looking to escape.

Listening to Italian radio in the car. The amount of times I have to listen to fucking Bon Jovi (or Anchovy, as he’s known in my house) is insane. Granted, they do play some gems I would NEVER hear on American radio (Nick Cave, Sex Pistols and TONS of Ramones) but the pain I must endure to get to them is starting to grate on my last nerve.
Oh, the humanity.

Crutch is the high life and rumplemintz sitting in front of me. Outrage is the girl slash ex girl who was unemployed but getting interviews but had “anxiety”. Gah!
I however now have resumes out in phoenix Tulsa okc Wichita and Maryland.

Crutch? Same as any other redneck, albeit an urban one, I buy a bunch of ammo, go to some desolate area, and shoot the hell outta various objects from cans, spinning targets, and so on. Dat sho’ takes the edge off, and keeps me from grinding my teeth to a fine powder. Airsoft is for kids, lol!

Amen to that Al. I picked up a new toy three weeks ago that most of America now thinks is a product of the devil (Sig M400). However, there’s nothing that relieves stress quite like throwing some lead downrange!

My wife (aka ‘the warden’) and daughters will absolutely NOT take the last of anything. At a meal, if there’s one meatball or whatever left, they will absolutely not take it.

If there is one cookie left in a package, it sits there until carbon dating needs to be used to determine its shelf life. Sometimes I’ll deliberately leave 1 pretzel or cookie in a package, just to watch them look at it, then ignore it.

Amazing, It has to be some kind of phobia.

**** Now to Important stuff, Jeff****

I’ve read tons of stories and studies about shift changing. Its pretty well documented that changing shifts on a person like you’re going through has some serious detrimental effects on a person’s health. I hope you’ll do some research and beg your boss for a little consistency in work shifts.

Have you experimented with transfering the old cookie to the new bag (without their seeing it of course) to see if their discerning taste buds can tell the difference?
Would you be left with two cookies in that bag?

My fresh outrage is more me feeling sorry for myself, but it’s still borderline outrage. My health is a major issue that keeps kicking me in the proverbial nuts (ovaries?) all the damn time. I just got over a year long bout with cancer. No biggie, I’m fine, but it still sucked! I’ve had a life-long heart issue that has become much worse due to the cancer meds, so I’m constantly tired. It’s chronic tachycardia, so my resting heart rate is always over 120 and I can’t do ANYTHING. I’m not supposed to take small walks for exercise, no yoga, nada. Not that I’m dying for that, but when you really can’t do anything without keeling over or ending up in hospital it kinda sucks. My doctor has referred me to 4 cardiologists who don’t know how to fix me, so they wash their hands of me & I end up at sqaure one. 5th cardiologist is this Friday, so I hope he will be better. *Sigh.
Money is always an issue. My A/C is a rooftop piece that is large enough to cool down a gymnasium but has been breaking on us. In the heat of summer, when temps are around 108 and the lows are about 107. The A/C guy came out two weeks ago when I was home alone and spent two hours trying to get me to agree to pay $5k for a new one. Didn’t happen and he “fixed it”, although ever since he left our house shakes (forks rattle on dinner plate shakes) because he didn’t mount the unit correctly. Now he’s there with my very pissed off boyfriend (heh) to fix it for free, or face his wrath.
I leave for Vegas for a group trip in one month and am actually petrified because of A.) My health and B.) Money issues. I want to go to get the hell away, but at the same time, I want to curl up in the fetal position with a binky and a teddy bear, hoping it will go away. Will it?

Oh yeah, and to top it all off my employer has gone bankrupt and I find out next week if I no longer have a job. So, there’s that too.
See, mostly all me feeling sorry for myself, but holy hell, 2012 has sucked big ones. And crap can we not pick someone and get this election shit over with?! I don’t even watch TV and am still bombarded with their mugs everywhere.

Last Tuesday I had to take my dog (pug) emergently to the vet. Of course this shit only happens after regular office hours. He starting coughing, then vomiting, almost gagging. Then he started shaking and whining. He has never been sick like this. Although nortorious for belly aches from eating the cat’s food when I don’t pick it up fast enough. But this was different.

I called he vet. And, of course, bring him in, ending the conversation by saying, “Just so you know, the Emergency visit will be $104.” Yes. Of course. It is 10:30pm.

After exam and xrays, he is diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia. He vomited and suck it back into his lung. It was full of crap that should have been in his tummy. Poor little bubba. The vet, who had the compassion of a dead fish, told us we had three choices:

1. Take him home on oral antibiotics. But be aware you will probably end up back here about 4 or 5AM as he won’t be able to breath. Great.

2. Leave him here for a course of IV antibiotics and oxygen where he will have a “better than average chance” for a 12 yo pug. $$$$$

We chose to leave him for IV and oxygen treatments. But not before a receptionist trots in with an “estimate” of our billl. In order to leave him, we had to give them half of the maximum amount. So we wrote a check for $750. I asked what would happen if we didn’t have the money. She said, “well, didn’t the doctor give you other options?” Fucking heifer.

It outrages me to think that if we didn’t have the money to save my dog, he would have died one way or another. Suffering or euthanized. My heart goes out to those who can’t afford to save their beloved pet. For some of those people, those pets are all they have.

We ended up paying over $1400. Yes, they saved his life. But how dare they be so cold and unsympathetic. I found out later that there are other emergency vets around who offer financing and payment plans for a scenario such as ours.

When I first started taking (both) pugs to these people, they were small, personable and reasonable. Now, it’s the fast food of pet care and all they care about is the total cost. They fucking charged me ridiculous costs such as $69 just to inject a needle in his vein. That’s not including the $120 medication! A needle DISPOSAL fee! Jumpin’ Jesus H!! Outrageous!!!

My second gripe: I just got a new Samsung Galaxy S3 phone. The first time for the “touch” keyboard. And let me be frank: They can take them and jam them up their touchtone assholes!!! Give me a regular keyboard anytime!!

I so feel you on this one, Biker! My dogs are my babies and I can’t imagine my life without them. I don’t have kids, so frankly, these guys are all I have. I had an issue about three years ago when my then 3-year old long haired chihuahua began foaming at the mouth. It was a hot day and she was outside, but she had plenty of water and was resting on a chair under the porch. Out of nowhere she began hacking and foaming. Luckily, boyfriend was right there and we scooped her up and raced to the vet (thankfully, normail business hours). They told us she had a collapsed trachia and kept her overnight on oxygen and charged about $500. They then told us the next day it wasn’t her trachea, but her heart and wanted us to put her on immediate heart pills. On top of the medicine she had been on for the trachea. Two hours later (after-office hours) she is seizing and we are at the emergency vet who say it’s not heart OR trachea, it’s her lungs. JEEZUS. Meanwhile, our dog is pretty much just fine. Happy, licking, loving, normal. Euthanizing was NOT an option. $800 later we take her to a specialist, referred by the emergency group 50 miles away who test her every which way, up and down and guess what? They think she simply swallowed a bug and briefly choked, causing a little foam, but nothing extreme. We were able to determine that all of her organs were perfectly fine, she was a little dazed from the drugs but they gave her a clean bill of health. How much did I pay them for that good news? Oh, only $1750. On top of everything else. When I complained to the original vet he told me “Oh well, we thought something was wrong.” It was then I began hearing horror stories of his misdiagnoses that people feel made them pay for his office remodel. We haven’t been to that jerkhole since. And I’m still paying the damn bill in my credit cards. Grrrr.

When the cost of repairing our 12 yr old dog approached the cost of my first car ($750) it was time for a long nap.

It’s a dog, yea part of the family, but a dog. My dad was in his 80’s when he got very ill and the costs to keep him alive went through the roof. He checked himself out and into the local VA hospital to die. He refused to use everything he had saved for him and my mom to live on in retirement on keeping him alive an extra few weeks or months after living a good long life. (His words, not ours.)

You either pay and don’t whine about it, find someone else to pay or end it.

Several things have me pissed. I’m officially jobless again. My prized little 4 x 4 shit the bed. My wife and kids love to drink milk. Fine. But they leave a little in the glasses and just leave their glasses on the goddamned counter. Do you know what it’s like to try to scrape milk out of the bottom of a tall glass? FUCK!

Verizon. Lying, cheating sons of bitches. You are due for an upgrade. No, nothing will change. You just pay for the new phone, that’s all. A one time deal. Pay for new phone. No changes or add ons to service. No re-signing or starting a new contract all over again. Nothing but $40 for the phone. Mm-hmm. Yeah, right. Monthly bill went up over $80. Taxes, surcharges and pro-rating, they said. Only on the first bill, they said. Has been $80 more a month for 5 months now. The little prick at the Verizon store says, “I can get my manager, but I can tell you right now, he won’t do anything for you”. Then don’t bother you cretin. You call customer service to explain that an expectation was set and was not met, they transfer you between three different workers who all repeat the SAME EXACT THING almost verbatim, which goes something like, “So sorry they told you that, there’s nothing we can do”. You write a letter to the VP of Verizon telling them you are disgusted by their lack of “customer service” after being a loyal customer for 7 years without so much as missing a payment. And never paying late. Their response? The same as the three bitches on the phone. Unbelievable. I am now counting the days until I can Verizon to go fuck themselves and I make sure to tell everyone at those Verizon kiosks NOT to sign up for their service since they will be lied to and then Verizon won’t do a damn thing to fix it. Oh, I did neglect to add that they were more than happy to offer to cancel my contract for some $350. Nice. That’s a great solution. Assholes.

That is exactly what I did…I went to Wal Mart to check out those unlimited plans for $45 a month. Makes me wonder how Verizon stays in business charging their outrageous prices. Oh, yeah…that damn “you’re locked in unless you give us $350, sucker” deal. So, I count the days until I can tell Verizon to go fuck themselves, and then start a website called Verizon Sucks (unless one already exists, which would not surprise me in the least).

As an insider in the industry, what you’re mainly paying for with the contract plan is the cost of the new devices and upgrading the towers. An average smartphone really “costs” around 700 bucks, but they subsidize it down, and then you pay it over time. That’s why they use the early termination fees as well, to pay for that phone that they just discounted down to lure you in. The problem with prepaid is that you pay an ungodly amount for the phone, and are stuck with older technology and sometimes limited service coverage. Pros and cons to both.

Ok my 15 yr old son…. first thing he asks EVERYDAY as soon as I walk in the door from work is “What’s for dinner?” drives me nuts. I have asked, begged, pleaded, & threatened him to give me a half hour to unwind & change out of my work clothes and I will make dinner. This has gone on for 10 years. I swear he does it just to fuk with me. Also the soda thing. I buy him water, jucies, kool-aid, & 2- 2 liters of soda a week. first thing he does is grab the 2 liters and guzzle them down, straight from the bottle…grrrrr… doesn’t matter what i do to punish him, he continues to do these things… If I don’t buy him soda he guilt trips me like a jewish mother….. now on top of it- being 15, he has that “mom don’t know shit” tone in his voice…. once again grrrrrrr….. but on the bright side no smoking, sex, drugs, cussing, or any of the stuff I used to do (thank jebus)……

Teach the boy how to fry an egg and how to use the toaster and he can make his own daggum dinner. Then tell him how you want your eggs and that he can call you into the kitchen when it’s all ready. You said the boy is 15; does he not have the aptitude needed to operate a stove and/or toaster?

Why, back in my day i had to hunt down my own meal and kill it with the knife my daddy stob in my leg on my fourth birthday.

I still remember the words of wisdom he imparted upon me that day, “Fuck you, kid.’ And I’d be damned if I didn’t still live by that.

I remember one eavnin’ that a ground squirrel I was chasin’ after made it to his hovel hole before I could get him. I walked home without a grub in my pocket, I tell ya. I asked momma if she finished the making biscuits yet. Boy howdy, I was tillin’ up rocks for dinner that night.

Damn youngin’s now-a-day. What with their Mac Donalds and microwave boxes. Iffin I didn’t get my testiculars stomped off by a hefer that one time in Tampa and I could find a considerate woman with which to promulgate I’d have my own kids to pass on the wisdom and way of old.

My house and yard are littered with half empty gatorade and water bottles. I have ONE child. He has many friends who are carbon copies of each other and my house was elected Supreme Playland, Summer 2012.

Holy Crap!
I just went into verizon because my phone wasn’t charging and I’m getting a free warranty replacement. No – your contract is overdue, No – your phone smells like it took a whiskey bath, no – go fuck yourself we are verizon and we don’t care.